


Still Alive

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Being A Nice Person Is Unnecessarily Difficult And Unnecessary, General Hux Is Not A Nice Person, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Redemption, but not really, but shit happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5863951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You've got to stick to your principles.</i>
</p><p>Disgraced and forced to baby-sit a sulking not-Sith overgrown child on a backwater moon, Hux wishes he could just put a blaster to the miserable bastard's head and end it all.</p><p>And then, he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Storytime: yesterday, I needed to mow my lawns. So I took my jerry can and toddled off to the petrol station. I somehow returned home with Kylo Ren's command shuttle in LEGO. And when I build LEGO, I always have a familiar movie on in the background as white noise. Except last night, I chose _In Bruges_. And then I promptly became obsessed with taking the basic premise of said movie and applying it to Hux and Kylo Ren. _Fuck_.
> 
> You don't need to have seen the movie to read the fic. But watch it anyway. It's brilliant. The fic pales by comparison. But, ah well. I enjoy making Hux miserable. That's all that matters, really.

“If you don’t get off this ship the moment I finish this sentence, I am going to kill you.”

The bastard doesn’t even look at him. All Hux can see of Kylo Ren is the long curve of his spine, shoulders hunched forward and knees drawn up. He barely fits into the lower bunk space. Under other circumstances Hux might have quirked a smile at it. In this moment murder is the only option on his mind.

“Ren.” Even his best command voice isn’t working – and he’s used said voice to order the deaths of billions of people. “ _Ren_.”

“You’re a liar.”

The voice croaks, breaks at the end, rusted from disuse. “What?” he asks, knowing he sounds foolish. It only makes the murder urge worse. For his part, the weariness in Ren’s reply suggests he knows why.

“I’m not dead,” he mumbles into his cocoon of sheets. “Therefore, you’re a liar.”

There is a blaster not two feet from him. How his hand itches to pick it up. Instead he settles for scraping his fingers back through his hair, despite knowing the supply of hairgel is low and it’s going to be sticking up in all directions now. It’s still easier to tidy away than an entire human body’s worth of blood.

“Well,” he says, and allows his hands to now curl to fists. “Well, perhaps I just thought it would suit your dramatics better, that you fall upon your own sword rather than have a superior officer put a blaster to the back of your head.”

“You’re not my superior.”

Hux doesn’t even try to contain the bitter chuckle. “I’m hardly anyone’s superior these days.”

At that he rolls over. It is predictable, and entirely typical; only when a weakness is revealed will Kylo Ren come sniffing about, a lazy predator sensing a bloodied wound he might rip further open. But the strange blankness on his washed-out features is something new. It actually makes Hux frown. Kylo Ren had already been a skinny drawn-out caricature of a person, but his skin is now so pale as to be nearly translucent, the skin under his eyes nearly purple. The half-healed saber wound just makes the effect even more disturbing. Despite never once leaving the bunk, it appears Kylo Ren is not sleeping. That’s strange, considering Hux had always thought he never slept anyway.

“He didn’t demote you,” Ren says, sudden. Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, Hux turns away, already smoothing down the chaos of his disordered hair.

“I’m currently in exile to a system I barely knew _existed_ , in the company of a disgraced idiot sorcerer who can’t even get out of his bunk for three days straight. If that’s not a demotion, I’m not sure what is.”

His voice is very quiet. “He didn’t take your rank.”

Now facing the opened shuttle door – he refuses to close it except after nightfall; fresh air is a necessity, not an option – Hux begins to massage his temples. “Ren, shut up.”

“But he didn’t.”

Turning on one heel, his lips curl into fierce sneer. “But he sent me here!” Had he been Kylo Ren, he probably would have slammed a fist through the nearest monitor screen. Instead he must settle for clamping his hands on his hips like some marketwife bawling out a street thief. “I mean it. Get up. The stench in here is becoming unbearable.”

Ren blinks, just once. “What, are you going to clean?”

“I became a cadet before I even learned to speak. I know how to clean a shuttle.” It’s almost to the point where Hux would be willing to drag Ren’s deadweight from the bed and down the ramp before rolling him into the lake. It’s just that his hands still crawl at the thought of actually coming into contact with that degree of filth. That’s the only reason he hasn’t done it yet.

And still Ren has not moved. Beginning to pace, now, Hux adds, “Maybe that would have done you good. To have been through something like the Academy. To have been taught the chain of command. To have learned how to keep your mouth shut before you even knew how to open it.”

When he glances over again, cold, he finds only those damnable too-big eyes staring at him. Then they fall closed again. How he wants to scream.

But he is an officer. Perhaps he is not a general anymore – perhaps he is not even a part of the First Order anymore. But he meant what he had said to Ren. He had been raised to this life from before memory. And he will die before he lets any of it go.

In the end Hux works around the useless lump of flesh jammed into the lower bunk. The strong chemical scent of the cleaning supplies burns his nostrils, the back of his throat, even his lungs; he finds it oddly soothing. Stripped to shirtsleeves, he works barefoot, boots set aside. They’ve already been already scuffed and damaged by the forest beyond the shuttle’s landing site, although he keeps them painstakingly clean. But he will not damage them further where it could be so easily avoided.

With trousers hiked up around his ankles, he moves very quietly. There is little sound indeed, either from the strange dead forest outside or the sole two creatures inside the ship. The latter alone would be peculiar enough; Kylo Ren, for one who made it so much his habit to never be ignored, can be surprisingly silent when he wishes it. Hux does wonder briefly if maybe he’s up and died of his own accord. He almost hopes for it. Then he remembers he could never be so lucky, and continues to work on the mess Ren has created apparently without even moving.

Therefore the silence only becomes troublesome in that Hux glances behind him some time later – and finds him gone. And he has no actual idea of when Ren had disappeared.

He chooses not to think too hard on it. The removal of the sheets is a task distasteful enough; he barely breathes as he bundles them into the small wall unit that will launder them as best as he can hope for, given the situation. Then he gets the most viciously antiseptic products he can find and sets his jaw as if facing off against a Deathstar with only his blaster to hand. Only when every surface has been over thrice does he stop and wonder where Kylo Ren might have gone.

He still doesn’t look for him. Instead he seats himself in front of one of the navigational computers in the cramped confines of the cockpit. They’ve been locked down by Snoke, of course; he’d permitted their navigation to only this one place. Hux, with little else to do but fantasise about stringing up Kylo Ren from the nearest tree, has been fooling with the computers almost since their landing. It’s just absent-minded wandering now, going through the protocols he has already altered far beyond their original orientations. It’s not as if it matters. There is no escape for him now. There is nowhere for him to go. But it’s still something to press at the bars of his prison just to see how far they might bend.

He’s drinking a glass of recycled water when a low cough behind him startles him into swallowing it the wrong way entirely. Turning, eyes watering fiercely, it’s a long choking second before he can splutter, “Ren! Don’t _do_ that.”

He’s a wraith, dressed in black with his drawn features like a fleshy skull above. Apparently he’d lost his mask back on Starkiller. There are few things that please Hux about the loss of the base, but that’s one of them. But Ren looks like an overgrown lanky excuse for a child without it, and very nearly manages to sound like one when at last he speaks.

“Why are we here?”

 _You only think to ask now?_ “I have no idea. Snoke hasn’t said a word since we arrived.”

Though he tries for confidence, voice low and hard, the little-boy-lost expression Ren wears as he stares off-ship ruins the effect entirely. “He wouldn’t just leave me here.”

“Yes, well, apparently he already has.”

Ren turns and focuses upon him in one vicious second, voice fierce with sudden fury. Hux can almost feel the hum of excited air around him, a dynamo spinning its energy well beyond capacity. “You know _nothing_.”

Hux is unmoved, unimpressed. “Yes. You’re right. I don’t know _anything_ about you.” But he cannot help himself when he adds, “For all I know, in truth Skywalker was your father and Organa your mother, and you’re just a failed experiment between brother and sister in an attempt to make the perfect little Jedi freak.”

Somewhere, in the distance, he can hear screaming. This is an uninhabited planet. The air is too warm, his skin prickling with sudden energy as the hairs upon the nape of his neck rise. _Is this how I die?_

And: it is gone. Ren stands silent, unmoving. With a sigh, Hux rubs the bridge of his nose, and wonders when it all went this wrong. It’s almost mindless, that he turns away, descends the ramp, and goes out into the forest.

Standing out by the lake, Hux watches the beginning of sunset. The prime star is dimmer than that on his homeworld, and moves much slower. It makes him feel very small. He has not felt that way since he shot up ten inches in one summer between semesters at the academy. It wasn’t a foolproof defence from bullies determined to take a piece of the son of Brendol Hux. But it certainly helped.

He is dying for a smoke. Of course he doesn’t have any. He still breathes like he has one pressed between his lips, until he decides he’s being ridiculous and returns to staring out across the unnaturally still waters.

When he decides to risk a return to the ship, he almost immediately scents something peculiar as it comes into sight. Still he resists the urge to run. He hasn’t run outside of a training drill since his days in the academy.

_(except starkiller)_

His slim body is still a coil of tension when he ducks his head, and steps back into the small living quarters of the shuttle. And he frowns. Kylo Ren looks up from the small stove. It’s hard to tell if his flush is due to the heat, or something else entirely.

“I do know how to cook,” he says finally, after a long and entirely awkward moment. Hux thinks longingly of the analgesic tabs he has been rationing since the first day, and wonders if a double dose could actually be justified this time.

Instead he steps around him, reaches for a glass, fills it with his next allowance of water. “Why would I think you couldn’t?” he answers coolly, and before Ren can reply, “Please tell me you haven’t poisoned it. I’d much rather die by your sword than your cooking.”

“I…” He’s swallowing hard, staring down at the mix of pots and pans. Hux isn’t entirely certain what it is, but can admit that it smells palatable. “It’s turnabout. You cleaned.”

“You must have spent a lot of time in the maintenance mess hall, then.”

Hux hadn’t quite meant that. From the ghost of a smile upon Ren’s face, more bemused than happy, he realises as much. They keep well out of one another’s way until Ren is finished; he even tidies away the dishes before setting down a plate before Hux at the small dining table. With a nod in lieu of thanks, he begins only after Ren has taken his place across from him. It’s surprisingly edible. He doesn’t say so. The fact he ate it at all ought to say as much.

After, Ren is even more subdued. “I will go practice my forms.”

Hux waves a hand, not looking up from the datapad he had been consulting throughout the meal. “Whatever gets you out of my shuttle.”

There’s a brief flare of Ren’s usual childish attitude then. “ _Your_ shuttle?”

Hux looks up, mouth set in a cold line. “I’m the only one looking after it.”

“True.” And he’s gone before Hux can even be surprised. It doesn’t help that a moment after that, there’s a beep from the cockpit: the holocomm, coming to life. Frowning, Hux immediately checks his hair, the angle of his collar. Only then does he answer.

“General Hux.”

It could be a good sign, or it could be a bad sign; despite his long years of training himself to be hyperaware of the moods of his superiors, Hux gives up on working out which it is. Bowing his head, he says only, “Supreme Leader.”

Snoke does not blink. Hux isn’t entirely certain he even has eyelids. “I see my apprentice is gone.”

“He’s not far.” Checking an internal sigh, he adds, “I’ll go get him.”

“No.” That single word freezes him in place, as sudden and harsh as a Hoth winterstorm. Snoke’s voice itself is colder when he speaks again. “This is for your ears only.”

Instinct has him wishing to slam his head against the nearest console. But Hux has never done anything like that in his entire life. “Of course, Supreme Leader. Your will by my hand.”

“Terminate him.”

He blinks once, very hard. Then, again. Snoke’s face still fills the holo before him, unmoving and unshifting. “ _What_?”

It can only be for the best, that Snoke appears unmoved by Hux’s blatant breach of protocol. “The death of his father has broken his mind beyond repair. I have no further use for him, especially given another Force-sensitive of his calibre has appeared.” And then: is that the faintest vestige of a smile, curling his lipless mouth? “You need not fear his reaction. His mind is too clouded for his powers to be of any use. He does not know what is planned for him.”

Hux is gripping the console, knuckles white beneath the tightened leather of his gloves. “But – sir – he’s some sort of _Sith_ , and I’m expected to just walk up behind him, and just…just put a blaster round in the back of his skull?”

The voice actually sneers, harsh and discordant as an emergency signal’s endless wail. “He is no Sith.” And there is not so much as an inch of leeway when he says, “And yes. You are expected to do precisely that.”

“Supreme Leader—”

“When it is done, I will remove the blocks on your ship. You are to return to the _Finalizer_ and resume command.” Snoke has never displayed any open emotion, except maybe for disdain for all beyond the First Order. But the dark ugliness of his fury here simmers just below the surface of his deformed features, crawling and cruel. Hux’s bowels have turned to ice even before he says, “There is nothing to debate here.”

 _Except that you are lying_. The thought is unbidden, traitorous. Hux has no idea if Snoke can read minds across galaxies. But then he supposes it doesn’t matter. They both know Snoke is lying. But they also both know that face must be maintained at all costs.

Hux bows his head before the console. “Of course, Lord Snoke.”

“Good.” His eyes are dark slits, like laser ports waiting for the order to fire. “Do not fail me again.”

Strangely, Kylo Ren appears to sleep that night. Hux can actually hear him snoring. But that is not the reason why he spends the entire time staring at the ceiling instead. He had never failed before now. It seems the end of Starkiller is but the beginning of many a first time for everything.

 

*****

 

Morning breaks very quiet. Hux rises with the sun as he always does, bathing and dressing and taking a quiet breakfast of the assigned amount of rations. He might have no work to do, but damned if he will not be ready for it.

_But you **do** have work to do._

He’s staring at his datapad, unseeing, when he hears movement across the ship. Glancing up he sees Ren. He’s dressed -- in as much as he _can_ be dressed, considering he appears to not have once removed the robes since their arrival – and is moving towards the ramp at the back of the ship.

“Where are you going?”

He pauses, does not turn. He’s just a shadow, even with no sun left to cast him. “For a walk.”

“Well. Don’t break anything.”

“It’s only forest out there.”

Hux turns a holopage. “Forest fires are very difficult to put out.”

There might have been something like a chuckle. It’s hard to tell at this distance. And he’s not sure he even wants to know. And then Ren is gone and it doesn’t matter anyway.

Shirking his duties has never been one of his failings – and his failings have always numbered few. It could be no other way. Hux still spends too long disassembling the blaster, cleaning its components with painstaking care, putting it back together. It had been in perfect order to begin with, of course. Like the entire ship. After twisting it in his ungloved hands, examining it from every angle, Hux puts it down, and starts again.

When at last he leaves the ship there is a distinct chill in the air. His hat is perched perfectly upon his head, the greatcoat slung across his shoulders while his arms hang free beneath the sleeves. All the better to conceal the blaster by, though from who he doesn’t know. There are alone on this rock. And according to Snoke, Kylo Ren’s heightened senses are dulled, all but useless.

His heartbeat still thuds quick and hard in his breast. It’s not as if he’s walking at any great pace. He can’t even be sure how he knows where Ren is, although as he draws closer to the lake he hears the distinct sound of an activated lightsaber. He smiles grimly and does not miss a step. _This is how I die._ With the blaster up at shoulder level, eyes straight down the sights, Hux walks out of the treeline and onto the pebbled beach.

Kylo Ren sits on a dead tree trunk before him, about to thrust the sabre into his abdomen.

“What are you _doing_?”

The shout startles him, throwing off both aim and motion; the blade of the saber itself flickers a moment, then extinguishes in an unhappy splutter. Already stowing the blaster in its back holster, Hux is striding forward, eyes ablaze and voice a rictus of utter fury. “ _Ren_!”

But he does not reach again for the hilt of the lightsaber. It’s wedged in the pebbles at his feet, blade-side down, by his left foot. Ren himself is staring into space, as blank and unresponsive as a droid devoid of battery charge.

“Ren,” he says, again – not a shout, but Hux still has no idea what he is doing. It doesn’t matter, because that is the exact moment that _Kylo Ren_ _bursts into tears_.

“I killed him.” The words are barely audible, and yet still etch themselves upon the very fabric of the air, as if scribed by his damned lightsaber itself. “I killed my father.”

Snoke had told him about Kylo Ren’s parentage. Hux hadn’t asked – in the chaos after the destruction of Starkiller Base, he had been hyperaware of his own mortality and little else, throwing himself fully into disaster recovery mode. There was no time for blame, not then. That would come when he had tidied up enough of his own mess to be disposed of himself in turn.

When Snoke had summoned him to say Kylo Ren’s recovery had proved too slow, and that he would be removed from the _Finalizer_ for a period as yet undetermined, Hux had said nothing. When Snoke had added that Hux would accompany him, he had said nothing. The revelations that they would be alone, and that Snoke believed Kylo Ren to have failed the final test of murdering his father – _Han Solo_ , no less – Hux knew there was nothing more to say. The girl would be found, Snoke had mused. Perhaps she would prove more stable than the disintegrating shell of a long-dead boy once named Ben Solo Organa.

“So you did,” he says, eventually. Ren’s hands, bare of gloves, flex in such a way that Hux is surprised not to feel the wrath of a Force choke about his high-collared throat.

“You don’t understand. He was my father, and I _killed_ him.”

“I know what you did.”

“You _don’t_.” And he’s furious and he’s still crying, like a child trying to articulate some desire they are too young to even feel. “I killed him and still I failed.” His hands are fists, beating against his temples. “I killed him for _nothing_.”

Ren falls silent, shaking like the last autumn leaf still clinging to its branch as the first winter storms strike. Hux takes a seat at his side, curling both hands about the tree trunk, gloved fingers digging hard into the bark. It’s not good for them. They hadn’t been designed for this. And now he’s not a general anymore he’ll probably never have a pair as fine as these again.

Ren has progressed to outright sobbing now. Hux isn’t sure he’s ever seen _anybody_ do that. Not even having been at ground zero of the worst of Ren’s previous tantrums could have prepared him for this. It’s like he’s trembling at the seams, a mere push from flying all to pieces. And while the shrapnel will undoubtedly cause Hux just as much damage, he has no idea what to do about it.

In the end he goes with an awkward palm, pressed between his shoulderblades. Ren starts, goes very still. It leaves Hux wondering what it feels like, when a lightsaber activates two inches from your chest cavity while facing entirely the wrong direction. Then: it gets worse than that. Far worse than even death.

Kylo Ren wraps his arms around him, presses his snot-riddled tear-stained face directly into Hux’s chest, and _wails_. The uniform isn’t pristinely clean, of course. It hasn’t been for days. But it’s the principle of the thing.

And yet Hux does not push him away.

It takes what seems like hours, but is likely only minutes, but eventually Ren begin to wind down, like an exhausted child. The dark head is practically in his lap now, the bare hands clinging so tight to his waist they must be leaving bruises tattooed in purple-black across his pale skin. Hux hasn’t moved an inch, still staring out across the lake. There’s nothing living in there, he thinks. It must be nice.

“I’m a failure.”

Hux only shrugs; he’s never been one to argue against the truth. “Suicide still seems a bit extreme.”

At that Ren snorts, a terrible liquid sound. Hux wishes he had a handkerchief. Then, watching Ren swipe his robe across his face, shifting the mess around, he’s glad he hasn’t got one to feel obliged to offer.

Transfixed as he is by the horror of watching Ren’s attempt to clean his own face, he almost misses his next words. “I only ever wanted to make my grandfather proud.”

Glancing away, down the beach, Hux bites back several swear words. He still hasn’t worked out the safest way to escape any conversation about Darth Vader. “Where _did_ you get that dreadful helmet? It looks like it was plucked off a funeral pyre,” he asks, finally; it feels innocuous enough. And he _has_ always wondered.

“That’s where I got it from. On Endor.”

He’d figured as much, though it still surprises him that Ren went and fetched it personally. And then it doesn’t. “Do I even want to know how many Ewoks you massacred in the process?”

The dubious frown on his face is very nearly amusing. “I didn’t think you’d be the type to like Ewoks.”

“I don’t. Horrid little midget things.” Crossing his legs, Hux flexes his fingers, wishes yet again he held a cigarra between the first two. “I just personally wouldn’t want to be killed over a _helmet_ , of all things.”

“I failed him.”

He can hear despair beginning to enter Ren’s voice again, rushing in like air filling a dead vacuum. Shaking his head, Hux doesn’t dare to look at him. The lake is still far too calm. He wonders if drinking the water would kill them both. “He’s dead, Ren. Dead and buried. Or was, at least, until you dug him up.”

With his head bowed, hair hanging in his face, it would be impossible to gauge his expression even had he wanted to. “You should have let me die.”

“Yes, well.” Reaching behind him, under the greatcoat, Hux thumbs the release on his holster. “It certainly would have made my job easier.”

He holds the blaster across his chest, in the space between them, still looking out across the waters. When at last he turns, he finds Ren staring at him, eyes too large and very dark. He is utterly, completely silent. Odd, how Ren stays out of his mind as of late. But then Hux is not hiding anything. There’s nothing left to hide, not out here in the perimeter of the civilised universe.

The pale throat works as Ren looks down to the blaster, again, and then back to him. For a moment Hux thinks he might just go on a second crying jag after all. But when he speaks, his voice is dry as dust. “He sent you to kill me.”

Hux doesn’t waste time on an answer. He only reholsters the blaster, and pulls the greatcoat tighter about his shoulders. Ren has already picked up his lightsaber again, twisting the silent hilt over and over in his bare hands.

“I am truly lost, then.”

Fury rushes through him, hot and venomous. “ _Idiot_.” Even as Ren glances up at him as Hux surges to his feet, mouth quite agape, he resists barely the urge to take out his weapon and shove it down his throat. “I expect you back in the shuttle in twenty minutes.”

“What?”

His lips twist in a deep scowl. “That’s an order,” he says, and stalks back into the forest. He doesn’t stop to think what he will do if Ren does not obey. It is, quite simply put, not an option.

 

*****

 

“Is it done?”

Hux does not beat about the bush. It’s never been in his nature. “No.”

For a moment, Hux has the opportunity to savour the complete and utter astonishment upon the Supreme Leader’s face. Then it twists, becomes something dark and ugly, beyond even the malformed horror it always has been. “ _What_?”

“I won’t do it.” Such honesty has a refreshing taste upon his tongue, bright and simple. “He’s no longer your creature, Snoke. He can be saved.”

The sneer is obvious, even upon such misshapen features. “By you?”

With a snort, Hux reaches down, adjusts the weight of the blaster in its holster. “Hardly.” With one hand now upon his cap, neatly set upon the console, he adds, “I’m the fallen son of a dead imperialist. He’s the son of queens, of generals, of _Jedi_. He’s worth more than a quiet assassination on some backwater moon. He can make another choice. He can _live_. And if that life is beyond the First Order, then so be it. I’m not going to kill him – and particularly not for you.”

All the dreadful emotion has leeched from Snoke’s face, leaving little more than a blank expanse. Hux doesn’t mind. It reminds him of the nameless graves of Stormtroopers, and for some reason, that seems only fair. “You will not escape this,” Snoke intones with harsh disinterest, and Hux actually manages a smile.

“I won’t even try to.” And he reaches forward for the disconnect. “I look forward to our next meeting, Supreme Leader.”

He flicks the comm unit off before Snoke can reply. The motions brings with it a vicious stab of glee. Hux just accepts it for what it is. He supposes he deserves some pleasure out of it, if only for the number of years he’s spent never directly questioning a superior order.

Then, he turns his attention to the ship itself. It’s surprisingly easy to do what is needful. But then perhaps he has been preparing for this from the beginning, even if he never allowed himself to think as much.

The ship is humming quietly to itself when Ren comes in from the outside. Glancing up, Hux notes his hair is vaguely damp; at least he’s clean before Hux sends him on his way. It’s almost like he’s forwarding on his first-born to the boarding houses at the Academy for the first time. Even such a ridiculous thought twists his heart in some strange and ancient way. Then Hux discards it as irrelevant, and schools his expression into something official and cold.

“You need to go.”

“Go?” Ren’s face is still something very strange with that pinked scar bisecting it into two uneven halves. And now it falls like a clumsy child down a staircase. “Where am I going?”

“Anywhere.” Tapping the console with one gloved finger, he can’t mask the pride he feels in his own work. “He won’t be able to track the ship. I’ve made sure of it. As for concealing yourself, you’ll have to worry about it yourself. Use your Jedi mind tricks, or whatever they are. Sith tricks. You know what I mean.”

He looks deeply unhappy, like a child who has just had all his toys thrown into the maw of a sarlacc right before his eyes. “I don’t practice Sith ways, Hux.” And then he rubs his reddened eyes, reminding Hux of the few toddlers he’d ever happened to chance across in his life. “What are you talking about?”

“I told Snoke.”

Silence had always suited Ren well. Hux hopes to see it again. And then realises he won’t, and has to smother laughter. It’s not funny. But somehow, it is.

“You have to go,” he says instead, brusque and not bitter at all. “And so do I.”

“Hux—”

“No. I’ve made my decision. And you’ll need all the headstart you can get.” Standing, pushing back from the computer, he feels an old familiar pang; he’d always felt that same moment of panic when handing in a completed examination paper. As if he’d forgotten something. As if there was something left to do.

But then, he’d always received perfect marks.

“Good luck.” His voice is rough. He doesn’t care to think about why. “And I mean that.”

With that he is gone, walking through the forest, head held high. He’s forgotten his damn cap. But then he decides he doesn’t care. Much as he’s never had much interest in such views before, the forest seems to have finally come to life around him. There are no birds, no reptiles, no mammals, no insects. He is the only living thing left. But the sharp scent of pollen and leaf and grass, the too-fresh taste of the air, the sound of the fallen branches crunching beneath his heel: all these, and a thousand other things he has never noticed before.

He supposes it’s beautiful.

Sitting on the tree trunk of earlier, before the lake, he watches the water lapping at the shore. It’s almost peaceful. It seems just as natural that he should be the one to shatter it, crashing through the underbrush, coming to stand between Hux and the lake with heaving chest and wild eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, perfectly composed. “You need to leave. Snoke will be here soon.”

For a long moment, Ren appears to have regressed to some unevolved state, struggling to find sounds beyond a grunted garble, let alone actual persuasive words. And then, he says it: “Come with me.”

It hurts, holding his spine this straight. Hux hasn’t noticed that in years. Practice makes perfect, and all that. “Are you an idiot?”

“You seem to be the expert on that.”

“Begrudgingly, but yes.” For the first time he lets irritation into his voice. “Ren. Leave. _Now_.”

“You can’t order me to do anything.”

“No. I can’t.” And much as he’d like to shout, to rant and to rail and to spit, he is not Kylo Ren. He is a general in the First Order. He will be until he dies. “But I can ask you. Nicely, even. Please leave.”

A kaleidoscope of emotion twists his features, back and forth like a badly calibrated rotor. And then he thumps down on the deadwood seat, gruff and awful. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Yes. You are.”

His wide lips are all but pouting. “I could make you come with me.”

“You could.” Hux smiles, dazzling and without pleasure. “I wouldn’t thank you for it.”

“The way I’m not thanking you for making me leave you behind?”

“Ren.” He’s very, very tired. While he’d always known he’d likely meet a violent end, he’d hoped not to be so _aware_ of its coming. “You and me. We’re different.”

“So?”

“So, the whole time I’ve known you, all I’ve watched you do is _fight_. Fight me, fight the ship, fight the Order. But they’ve all only ever been poor substitutes. It’s the Light. You try and try and try but you can’t escape it. It’s calling you back.”

His long face is still and struck with clear shock. Hux wants to punch it, right in that stupid scar. Instead he closes his eyes, and sighs.

“And you _can_ go back. It’s not too late.”

And now Ren’s head is bowed again, a penitent before a heedless god. “I killed my father.”

“Yes, yes. And then you stained my uniform while crying your stupid eyes out about it.” Ren’s staring at him again, horrified and indignant both; Hux is too tired to laugh. “And that’s the crux, isn’t it? You regret what you’ve done.” Raising his own hands, he smooths down his hair, lets them fall. “Ren. I killed billions of people. And still I sleep soundly at night. What does that tell you about me?”

“That you still let me go even knowing Snoke will kill you for it.”

It’s hard, hearing it spoken aloud like that. “Ren,” he begins, then stops. The pain in his temples now is far beyond anything in the inadequate medkit, even if he'd wished to take anything more from it now. “Ren, there’s nothing left here for me. I had everything I wanted – well. Almost everything.” He manages a faint laugh, hollow and ghost-like, as if he’s already dead. “And I’ll never have it now.”

Those damn unblinking eyes do not break gaze with him once. And then Ren is lurching forward, pressing their lips together. The kiss is clumsy and hot and foolish and so utterly _Ren_ that Hux doesn’t even have the heart to push him away.

But when he draws back, flushed and pupils blown wide, Hux just sighs. “You do realise I was talking about being declared Emperor over a new galactic regime.”

“Shut up,” Ren says, and kisses him again.

It has been a long time. There simply had not been much opportunity for fraternisation when the only person near his rank had been for too long a dark wizard thing with the impulse control of a three year old.

That creature has his too-large hands on him now, and they’re trembling even as they grasp at him from all directions at once. Hux hopes desperately that he isn’t going to cry again. But Ren is already pulling at his uniform, trying to work him free. And how he’d slaved over the damn thing, making sure that when he died at least he’d leave a decently-attired corpse. As it is, he can only hope he’ll find the belt again later, given Ren has now thrown it so far to the left it has quite vanished beyond the tree line.

The kisses over his chest are hot, damp, concentrated over his heart. The sentiment of it is quite nauseating. Hux still lets him do it. He tangles his own hands in his hair, even. There’s really no way of knowing where this could possibly go. Then he supposes it doesn’t matter; he’s going to be dead at the end of the day one way or another.

Ren looks up from sucking on one nipple, eyes wide and hair in disarray, like he’d heard the thought and disapproves mightily. Hux supposes anything is possible. “You don’t want to do this here.”

He blinks. “What?”

He kisses him first, bites his lower lip almost hard enough to break the skin. Then he draws back. He’s never looked more the wild thing. “Come to bed.”

“You really want me on that shuttle, don’t you.”

Ren answers by turning and walking away. First Hux indulges himself in the colourful and extensive lexicon of curses he has personally collected from across the galaxies. Then he follows. Damn the man for realising he’d prefer an actual bed over a sweaty fumble on a pile of leaves.

Still, climbing up the ramp, he notes the shuttle is dim inside; Ren has powered the damn thing down, though Hux had left it prepped for immediate dust off. The idiot. And then said idiot is on him again, stripping him bare, tugging him down onto the bunk.

Hux can’t be sure if Ren’s ever done this before. He seems to have _some_ idea – but then, he can’t be sure that he’s just not plucking it straight from Hux’s own mind, because the moment he thinks of something, it is done: Ren, kissing his throat. Ren, tracing a finger down his spine, pressing at its terminal end, blunt fingertips teasing the dip of his ass. Ren, rolling them over, leaving Hux on top. Ren, opening his legs, tilting his hips upward.

“I just cleaned this bed.”

“Stay with me.” He looks too young like this. “I’ll even let you clean it again, if you want.”

There are probably worse ways to spend one’s last hours. At least he’s located some lubricant from the medkit, chemical and unsexy as it might be. From the expression on Ren’s face when he presses two fingers in, he indeed has not done this before. But they haven’t got time to go slow. Hux only allows him a moment, just enough. Then: he is adjusting his hips, one hand steady upon a slim waist, the other wrapped about his own cock. Pressing in, the head catches, doesn’t move. Above, Ren draws a hissing breath. But when Hux stops, his hand snaps down, closes long callused fingers about Hux’s wrist. His eyes are closed, brow furrowed in deep concentration. Gathering his lower lip in under his upper teeth, Hux slides in. Slides home.

And Ren opens his eyes. “ _Hux_.”

“Shut up.”

He makes a gurgling sound close to an outright giggle, and strangely, he does. Not that it matters. Ren isn’t speaking inside his head, as he has had wont to do when wishing to be particularly irritating. But he’s _there_. Hux can feel him. It’s a constant presence, as if Ren had flowed in through his mind and now wears Hux the same way he does those robes and ridiculous helmet. There’s a faint undercurrent of discomfort, bordering on outright pain. Sweat trickles down the hollow of his spine as he grits his teeth, adjusts, fails. Then, again; Ren’s expression contorts, but in all wrong ways. Hux tilts his hips just a little to the left – and _there_ , a flash of pleasure that is not the heat and pressure on his own dick.

Keeping his aim on target is easy. He had been a deadshot in the academy, had learned discipline and how to hold his position. His hair falls in his eyes, sweat-damp and dark; Hux blows it away, impatient. His hands are fixed upon Ren’s hips, holding them still, keeping them focused on the pleasure Hux now knows how to give. Ren’s own hands press over his, hard enough to bruise. And Hux does not let go. He would not even if he could.

And his eyes are focused only upon the dark ones open before him. There are no words. He doesn’t want them anyway. The heat and the pressure and the shift of both is enough, watching Ren twist and squirm and sigh as Hux pounds into him. Only when he comes, stuttering and sudden, does Ren make a sound like regret.

As if dreaming, still buried to the hilt in him, Hux moves one hand to wrap around Ren’s cock: like the rest of him, long and over-sized. It gets all red and wet around the head when angry too, apparently. As he begins to work it, his own grip faintly hazy and clumsy inn his post-coital state, Ren’s own hand comes around his, shows him how he likes it. Like Hux, he comes near-silently, but Hux can hear it in his mind.

_Please don’t leave me._

When next he has a coherent thought, Hux finds they are lying together, tangled impossibly in the bunk Ren has been using as a sulking pod since their arrival. He’s an idiot. Somewhere down the line he knows he’s fallen asleep, and he cannot be sure how long for. The quality of the light in the shuttle is worryingly artificial; it must be dark outside. Where is Snoke? Snoke is taking too long. They’re both going to die for this, and somehow Hux regrets only that Ren will never get what he wanted most.

“I’m sorry for calling you a failed Jedi incest baby,” he says, sudden. “I was upset.”

Snorting, Ren curls tighter about him, breath warm against the nape of his neck. “I know.”

It’s stupid to be enjoying this – being wrapped in the arms of a certifiable maniac. At least when Hux kills people, there’s a logical course of reason and result. “I should go get my uniform.”

“Why?” Ren’s hands tighten about his waist. “It’s gone, now.”

“It’s just outside.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What?” For the first time, Hux really _looks_. The nearest window is a dizzying spin of blurred hyperspace. For a long moment dumbstruck horror leaves him as a trembling statue in Ren’s grip. Then he’s rolling out of the bed, hitting the floor in a painful rattle of knees and elbows; then he’s staggering drunkenly to the window, pressing both hands against the thick transparisteel.

“What have you _done_?”

“What was necessary.”

He says it but quietly. Hux himself has nothing left to say. Only the stars outside have any meaning to him now, blurred and distant as they are. Once they had all been so familiar. They’re different, now, and changing every second. That probably makes more sense than anything else happening at this precise moment.

For one so tall, so obsessed with making sure his presence alone was the very herald of evil intent, Ren sounds and feels so very tentative when he comes to his side.

“What are you thinking?”

Hux blinks at his reflection. His hair is a terrible mess, again. “Can’t you tell?”

“No.”

In the long pause that follows, Hux cannot feel Ren poking at his mind. He supposes that’s progress. “I know I’m awake,” he says, very slow. “But it feels like I’m in a dream.”

Ren swallows, just once, and hard. “…a good one?”

“I don’t know yet.” And he glances down, crinkles his nose at his own nakedness. “And you owe me a new uniform.”

Without waiting for an answer, Hux turns, heads for the small refresher. That the two of them together will create an abominably cramped situation means nothing to Ren, but then he’s never been overly concerned about personal space. They’re both wedged in there together, just barely managing to share the flow of water from the showerhead, when Ren speaks again.

“How about just new clothes?”

“Yes, well.” Reaching the facecloth, he skims across Ren’s hip, feels the twitch of a rising cock against one thigh. “Get me some tabac with it, and I suppose it will do. For now.”

And Ren actually laughs. Then, he’s kissing him. The facecloth slips to the ground as Hux tangles both hands in the damp dark hair, and gives up. He’s still alive. He supposes he’ll just have to work with that.


End file.
